The days of cumbersome and lengthy iOS updates via the standard USB-to-computer iTunes connection may be coming to an end, possibly before the end of the year. The blogosphere is buzzing this morning with speculation born of new revelations from "sources" speaking in confidence to our friends at 9 to 5 Mac. According to information they possess, Apple is planning to deliver iOS updates over the air beginning this fall.

The next major iOS upgrade - and it will be a hefty one - should propel the iDevice universe into iOS 5-land. Once iOS 5 is made available, subsequent software updates may be delivered to the iPhone over the air.

In this regard, however, Apple isn't ahead of the curve, it's actually playing catch-up. Given that a number of rival smartphones already offer over-the-air operating system updates, Apple will simply be striving to better compete with other handsets and technologies that, at present, are superior to Apple's iOS in some regards.

Obviously, if this is a feature in iOS 5, it should conceivably make its way to iPad and iPod touches as well. That means iTunes may no longer be a needed conduit for updating iOS devices in the future. It would also mean that the iPad could finally be a stand alone device.

Of course, Apple would likely have to change to a considerable degree how frequently it delivers software updates - updates that will now have to come in much smaller download packages. After all, many of us had a chuckle at Engadget's jab at yesterday's release of iOS 4.3.3, which delivered a sizable 666.2 MB file to update iPhones to a version that only accomplishes the "removal of things."

Sure there will be a jailbreak patch/tweak that disables the posibility of Apple pushing updates to ones phone "silently" and without ones consent! Whatever is coded can be uncoded, just matter of time and will...

This should have been done years ago. Apple is always looking at the "security" threats...thus we wait for technology we should already have...it is what it is i guess. At least you won't have to worry about iTunes asking you to update every time you sync a song...no more mistakingly updating your firmware haha!

This would possibly be the biggest mistake in iPhone history, Apple cant manufacture the iPhone with no memory, what happens when you have no network access??

I think he forgot about the fact that apple does not run a data network so they ultimately can't make a big decision like cloud based storage without At&t's/ verizon's approval.... And from the looks of it AT&T doesn't like people over using their data networks...

No thank you! I'm not one of these yuppie idiots who don't have the 5-10 minutes to sit down at a computer and update manually because I'm too into myself. It also would NOT have to be something to opt into, it CAN be forced. Look at the Chrome browser. It updates on its own without option to not do so. If they roll this out I will simply sell my phone and go back to a "dumb" flip phone. Kinda sick of paying a $100 bill a month instead of being billed on actual usage. I also don't foresee and networks giving people a break on the data usage this will use. I think they will count it against their bandwidth usage.

I for one think its a cool idea but may cause issues for future jailbreaks.
I do think it still would be possible to jailbreak but it depends if the .ipsw would still be available on apples servers. Without that it would be difficult to facilitate a jailbreak.
I also think apple would make you have to be on wifi to do the bigger updates so you wouldn't have to worry about your data plan. Then again Apple could pull ( i think ) microsofts approach and not let users update if you jailbroke your phone; That would be the biggest issue.